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Archive for April, 2012
Top Five Smartphone Vendors: Volumes, Mkt Shares, Growth Rates — 4Q 2011
Friday, April 27th, 2012S&P 500 Price vs. U.S. Treasuries 10-Year Yields Since 1957
Friday, April 27th, 2012click images to enlarge
Dividends vs Capital Appreciation for U.S. Equities by Decade From 1926
Friday, April 27th, 2012JP Morgan Asset Management included this information in their “Guide to the Markets, 1Q 2012″ about the relative contribution of dividends and capital appreciation to total return for U.S. equities.
Over the full span from 1926 through 2009, dividends contributed 4.1% and capital appreciation contributed 5.5% — 42.7% of the 9.6% total return.
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We don’t know what dividend reinvestment or tax assumptions were made. The data is for the S&P 500, which was not created as the “500″ until the 1950′s, but there is a broadly accepted set of precursor index data (including the Dow Jones index) which was undoubtedly used for the period from 1926 to the actual launch of the 500.
Dividends Contribution to Utilities Total Return Over 10 Years
Friday, April 27th, 2012Price charts for dividend stocks don’t tell the whole story. Over long periods, such as 10 years, the contribution to total return from dividends can be quite substantial, as shown in this chart of price return and total return for the S&P 500 utilities sectors ETF (XLU).
source: Wall Street Journal (December 5, 2011)
Highest and Lowest Paid U.S. Doctors
Thursday, April 26th, 2012These data are the result of a Medscape/WebMD survey:
Source: USA Today
Imagine borrowing money to attend an expensive top level college for 4 years, then borrowing money to attend 4 years of medical school, then several years at moderate income as an intern and resident, then trying to pay off those loans with a spouse and children and a mortgage and a car loan with a $156,000 income at age 30 or more. Very tough indeed.
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